Biography of Charles L. Rice - McDowell Co. WV

The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.
Chicago and New York, Volume II,
pg. 212

Charles L. Rice began his career in the great coal mining sections of
McDowell County, but for a dozen years past his more extended business
connections have been as a lumberman and contractor and in construction
engineering, the headquarters for his operations being in the capital
city of Charleston.

Mr. Rice was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia in 1880 and when he was
a child his parents S.G. and Nannie (Green) Rice, native Virginians,
removed to Roanoke, that state.  Here he grew up and secured his early
education and as a young man entered the coal business, a connection
that took him to McDowell County West Virginia in 1900.  After about ten
years in mining operations he removed to Huntington and became a member
of the Huntington Lumber and Supply Company, the Minter-Holmes
Corporation, extensive manufacturers and dealers in lumber, with main
offices in Huntington and plants at Kenova and Williamson, West Virginia
and Jackson, Kentucky.  After a residence at Huntington for seven years
Mr. Rice removed to Charleston and was an active factor in the
organization of the Kanawha Valley Lumber Company, which began business
in February 1918.  Mr. Rice is vice president and general manager of
this company, which has an extensive and modern plant in West Charleston
on an ideal industrial site long the Kanawha and Michigan Railway and
extending west from Patrick Street.  It is a general wholesale and
retail lumber business, one of the largest of the kind in the state.

Since coming to Charleston, Mr. Rice has had a personal and financial
interest in the general building and construction business, and in that
capacity has been a factor in the remarkable building expansion going on
in the city since war time.  He organized and is president of the
American Engineering and Construction Company, whose special field is
business and industrial buildings, coal plant construction and kindred
work. The American Clay Products Company, of which he is president,
manufactures brick and hollow tile and has created a new and very
important industry in West Virginia.  The company has a brick plant at
Lewis, Virginia and a plant for the manufacture of hollow tile at Teays,
West Virginia.

Mr. Rice is active in various civic business organizations at
Charleston, including the Chamber of Commerce, Kiwanis Club and is a
thirty-second degree Mason and Shriner.  He married Miss Maud Diskins, a
native of Kentucky.  Their two children are Daniel E. and Virginia.


Submitted by Elizabeth Burns <burns@asu.edu>

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